Today is 3-D Day on Blu-ray. Did you realize this? All year, the biggest complaint against 3-D adoption for home theater has been the lack of quality 3-D content to watch. The studios attempt to rectify that now with a big push of 3-D titles on Blu-ray. Among them are brand new day-and-date releases such as ‘Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore‘, ‘A Christmas Carol‘, and ‘The Last Airbender‘. Plus, we have catalog titles like ‘Clash of the Titans‘, ‘Open Season‘, and ‘The Polar Express‘. For pure eye candy, we also get the ‘Official 2010 FIFA World Cup Film‘ and a trio of IMAX movies: ‘Deep Sea‘, ‘Space Station‘, and ‘Under the Sea‘. That should give you plenty of excuse to put on those dorky 3-D glasses.

On the other hand, if you expect more than just eye candy, let’s take a closer look at that batch of discs. ‘Cats & Dogs’, ‘The Last Airbender’, and ‘Clash of the Titans’ were widely regarded as three of the worst movies of the year. They’re also all quickie 2-D to 3-D conversions, reportedly of atrocious quality. ‘A Christmas Carol’ may be native 3-D, but (like ‘The Polar Express’) it’s another of Robert Zemeckis’ creepy, soulless motion capture animated films that will probably give your children nightmares for years to come. ‘Open Season’ is an utterly generic and forgettable CG kids’ movie. A reel of soccer clips, 3-D or no, is a major yawn. That really leaves us only with the three IMAX documentaries that might actually be worth watching.

What a depressing state of affairs.

In regular 2-D news, the biggest title of the week is the ‘Avatar: Extended Edition‘. In addition to bloating the already-long movie’s running time by 16 more minutes, the Extended Edition also gives us some of those bonus features that quite frankly should have been included with the original Blu-ray release. I saw James Cameron give a presentation for some of the new footage. As if the movie weren’t already enough like ‘Dances With Wolves’, he’s added a buffalo hunt. Seriously.

And don’t kid yourself about this being the definitive home video edition of the film. A 3-D version has already been mastered and will be released soon.

Much more interesting is the documentary ‘The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story‘, which showcases newly-found footage of Bruce Springsteen creating his breakout album. Unfortunately, most of that footage was shot on standard-def camcorder video. However, the music tracks will undoubtedly benefit from lossless audio encoding.

The Criterion Collection offers up the classic psychological thriller ‘Night of the Hunter‘ and Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece ‘Modern Times‘, while Kino gives us the double-bill of Buster Keaton’s ‘Sherlock Jr./Three Ages‘. All are worth cherishing.

Wrapping things up, I brought up the aspect ratio controversy regarding ‘The World at War‘ in my HD Advisor column last month. This is a real travesty, and I hope people complain to the studio rather than buy a compromised product like this.

About Josh Zyber

Josh Zyber is a veteran movie and video disc reviewer from Laserdisc to DVD and beyond. He's previously written for DVDFile.com, DVDTalk.com and Home Theater magazine. These days, he wastes most of his free time managing this blog and writing the occasional Blu-ray review for High-Def Digest.

40 comments

There are several I want to pick up, but want to wait for a good buy the release date prices on some of these is ridiculous. The main one I want is World at War, which I will probably pick up once it dips below $60. A couple of others I want are Last Airbender (This movie ROCKED! Just wish it was a bit longer, it was too short!, IMAX Space Station and A Christmas Carol. Once again, though, will probably wait for a price drop on these, $35 a disc is outragious! I’ll wait a couple of months, and pick these up used for like $15 a disc.

Patrick A Crone

Avatar is an odd movie for me. The film itself is bad. Yet, from a technical standpoint, it’s ground breaking. I’ve watched it 4 times, ignoring the plot and acting and marveled at how good it looks. Cameron has been able to take CGI characters out of the bottom of the uncanny valley and given them real personality and life. Considering A Christmas Carol and Avatar were released so close together, it’s amazing how creepy the former looks compared to the ladder. I might buy Avatar: The Extended cut just for the supplements.

besch64

Rich87

I plan on getting the Avatar extended edition. But seriously I don’t get all this hate that movie is getting. I was entertained and apparently people who spent two billion were entertained too. Did the story blow me away? No. but I think the film had a lot of other redeeming qualities. Hating on avatar for me is like hating on toy story because toys can’t come to life. It doesn’t always have to make sense.

Gawd… what a mediocre list! I’d be curious to see “Ancient Aliens: The Complete Season One”, but a) don’t need to buy it. b) if I did, I don’t need to see it in HD…

Basically there’s Shawshank on that list. That’s it. Falling Down is a flawed but interesting film, but not one worth buying. A few of the documentaries would be interesting, but certainly not to buy… hmm… Looks like a cheap month lol!

vihdeeohfieuhl

Disclaimer: This is going to be lengthy. I am sick of all of the Avatar bile and can no longer hold my tongue.

I completely agree with Rich87. All of the hate for Avatar is completely unwarranted. All of the poison and vitriol being spewed towards this film is absolutely ridiculous! I would even go so far as to say that people are just dishing out this bile towards Avatar becasue it has became the trendy thing to do. I truly believe that people feel that it makes them smarter and more sophisticated to say that they hate Avatar and lash out at anything related to it. Many of these same people loved the film the first time they saw it, and changed their opinion over time because it became cool to go against the grain and act like they are above it.

Look, Avatar didn’t just make 2 billion, it made closer to 3 billion. Obviously millions of people enjoyed this film more than they had ever previously enjoyed any other. It was nominated for virtually ever major critics award. This proves that highly intelligent and urbane people found a lot of quality in it. HDD staff, as well as other people need to stop taking the easy way out and calling it Dances with Wolves. If you’re going to bash it, at least come up with something clever. It is a major knock to the credibility of HDD that Avatar received the review that it did.

We all get it ok! It’s not cool to like a film that millions upon millions of people loved! It’s much cooler to hate something like this because you can keep telling yourself that you are unique and you are an individualist. If you want to keep pretending that you hate it so much, at least do it in a more witty fashion. Your tired remarks about Dances with Wolves are getting lamer and lamer.

I would love to travel back in time and see what all of you would have said about your beloved Star Wars when so many millions of people loved it so much. It just wouldn’t have been hip to love it to. You would have had to come up with some lame comments about how uncreative it was.

Avatar is the film of the generation much like Star Wars was the film of that generation. It’s actually nothing like Dances with Wolves if you really make an attempt to see it for what it is and analyze it. All of us can say that every film rips off ideas from others. That is the very nature of the artistic medium. Avatar is uniquely brilliant and artistically ambitious. All of the negativity needs to either stop, or at the very least, become a lot more witty.

vihdeeohfieuhl

Josh,
Did you really just say that the script for Avatar is a point for point carbon copy of the Wolves script? Would you like to take a minute and think about that? Are you familiar with what a script is? Do you actually understand the concept of one. C’mon! I was going to take the time to explain exactly what a script is, and then break down all of the MAJOR differences between Avatar and Dances, but I can’t be guilty of dignifying your outlandish statement with a reply.

vihdeeohfieuhl

Jane,
Avatar’s box office is not an indication of quality? Ok, what about all of the nominations for practically every major critics award? Is that an indication of quality? Last I checked, it wasn’t only being nominated for the technical awards. Besides, I would argue that the box office is an indication of quality, at least to a certain extent. The simple fact of the matter is that hundreds of millions of people would not see a terrible film. Yes, bad movies can certainly be successful, but not almost 3 billion dollars successful. Furthermore, you say that Avatar is the only film in history where masses of people went to check out the technology and not the story. Please! There are multiple films a year where this is the case. Did anybody go see the Transformer movies for their story?

You’re shooting yourself in the foot with your own argument. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen grossed $835 million in the same year as Avatar, and yet is almost universally regarded by everyone who saw it as garbage. If it had been in 3-D and benefited from the 3-D ticket surcharge that Avatar had, it could have easily hit $1 billion to $1.5 billion. And yet still everyone would have hated it. Because it sucks. Unfortunately, being terrible has never prevented a movie from making lots of money.

You say that you won’t be bothered to refute my complaint that Avatar is a carbon copy of Dances with Wolves. I say that you CAN’T refute it. They are the same story, point-for-point. Transplanting the setting from the Old West to outer space doesn’t negate the fact that every single plot point in the two movies is otherwise the same.

Even James Cameron himself has ADMITTED that he used Dances with Wolves as his template for Avatar. If you still can’t see it, that’s your own failing as a viewer, not the fault of any critic for pointing it out.

Reviews and awards tend to be more political, rather than an accurate judgement of craft. And hate is the natural opposite of hype. It grows out of disappointment. Josh’s review is a call for higher artistry. I guess that bothers the hive mind.

No one went to see Transformers to check out the advances in CGI.

The word of mouth on Avatar, that built its massive box office, was… Ignore the weak story, check out the 3D.

Alice In Wonderland, Toy Story 3, and the rest of the 3D kiddie junk didn’t get much of a 3D box office boost. Avatar might be a one-time fluke. We’ll have to see how the sequels perform…

vihdeeohfieuhl

Josh,
I am not shooting myself in the foot with my statement about Transformers. Did you not read my post? Here is a direct quote from it: “Yes, bad movies can certainly be successful, but not almost 3 billion dollars successful.” 835 million is a long ways away from almost 3 billion! It’s not even a third of the gross of Avatar. I’ll say it again, there are a lot of bad films that are successful, but not nearly 3 billion dollars successful.

As far as your statement that I can’t refute your claim that Avatar and Dances have the same script goes, I still won’t justify that with a response. You clearly don’t understand the concept of a script. I say all of this well aware of Mr. Cameron’s statements about Wolves. Furthermore, many terrific films have used fims of the past to gather inspiration and creative direction. This doesn’t mean that their scripts were even close to being the same.

Dick,

You call my comment about people thinking that it’s hip to not like something that so many millions love “silly.” I think you know it’s true. A lot of people are guilty of it in this day and age. Especially those of us who are so active in the “geek” and “nerd” communities. By the way, I’m not saying that we are geeks or nerds, just that many people refer to us that way, and we are even guilty of it from time to time. I think we are all aware of that fact that this community likes to find unique things to love and express hate towards many of the things that the mainstream loves.

You strengthen my argument with your comment about Scott Pilgrim. If that film would have been wildly successful and all of the mainstream would have loved it, and never stopped talking about it. You know very well that it wouldn’t have the same appeal to you. Part of the reason why you love that film so much is the fact that you feel that you discovered a hidden gem and everybody missed out. This is all to common in our particular community. If Scott Pilgrim would have made over a billion dollars and you had to hear every single person in the mainstream talk about it endlessly, you know you wouldn’t like it as much. In fact, you would probably hate it. You would find something about it that you couldn’t stand, and start comparing it to other movies.

I also want to thank you for making that statement about Jaws, because it proves my point in the most simple fashion. Jaws came out before the internet. It came out before, opening weekend box office was more important that anything. It came out before the time that outrageously successful films experienced 50-70% dropoffs during their second weekend. The bottom line is, Jaws was before the time when millions of us could sit down and endlessly dissect films and discuss them all day long with each other. If Jaws came out today, and the mainstream people loved it just as much as they did in 1975; and it made 100+ million during it’s opening weekend; and you had to listen to EVERYBODY talk about how super duper awesome it was ALL THE TIME. You wouldn’t like it at all. You would find some little seen film that you could latch on to and sing it’s praises, while talking about how everybody missed out on such a diamond in the rough. This happens every single day in our community. We’re all aware of it, no matter how much some of us don’t want to come to terms with it.

So you’re saying that $835 million is insignificant – a mere pittance than any moderately popular movie can hit? There have only been 22 movies in history that have ever made more money than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Reviews and awards tend to be more political, rather than an accurate judgement of craft. And hate is the natural opposite of hype. It grows out of disappointment. Josh’s review is a call for higher artistry. I guess that bothers the hive mind.”

I think these points are the reason why the incessant bashing, hate, and negativity bother me so much. I don’t love Avatar. I don’t think it’s one of the 100 best films I’ve ever seen. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to sit and rag on it with the same tired sarcasctic comments. And it certainly doesn’t mean that I’m going to just spew vitriol at it all day long. I don’t see why Josh and others do this so much. It seems like a waste of their time. To me, it also discredits them because they are trying to convince everybody that it’s an awful film. It is decidedly not an awful film. Would it have been great if it would have been smarter and had a better hero’s journey? Absolutely! Does that mean that it’s a terrible film. Absolutely not! It simply means that it could have been better. I feel that Star Wars could have been better. — I’m talking about the original Star Wars as seen in theatres in 1977, not the special editions. — That doesn’t mean I’m going to try and convince everybody that it’s awful and make non-stop sarcastic and hateful remarks about it.

I also agree with what you said about awards. With that said, I still don’t think that we see too many awful films get nominated for such prestigious awards. Mediocre films? Yes. Truly Awful films? I think not.

A call for higher artistry may or may not bother the hive mind. I couldn’t tell you. I can tell you that what Josh is saying goes way beyond a call for higher artistry. If he was simply calling for higher artistry, I would love it. What Josh is doing is challenging the intellect of anybody who enjoyed Avatar, and I find that unacceptable. The fact that Josh hated this film so much also seems worth pointing out. Wishing that a film was better is no reason to hate it with so much passion. Perhaps Josh feels that hating it wish so much passion is serving some type of purpose. I don’t know.

I just don’t see why Josh and others can’t seem to leave it be. Yes, Avatar could have been better, there’s no doubt about that. I wish that the screenplay would have been more elegant and intelligent. There’s no doubt about that. I believe that Cameron wanted kids to be able to see it, hence the dumbing down of the overall story, and the soft PG-13 rating. Did this hurt the overall product? Yes it did. Did it turn Avatar into the garbage that Josh is trying to convince everybody it is? No way!

By the way, I love what you say about Transformers. I have to ask, If not for the advances in CGI, why did anybody go see it?!

You complain about the incessant bashing, hate, negativity, and vitriol spewed toward the movie. Yet here you are bashing, hating, and spewing vitriol towards any review that has a different opinion about the movie than you do. Which is the greater waste of time?

“What Josh is doing is challenging the intellect of anybody who enjoyed Avatar, and I find that unacceptable.”

Why do you assume that just because I didn’t like the movie, that automatically means that I’m insulting the intelligence of anyone who does like it? Point me to the exact sentence or paragraph in my review where I challenged your intellect.

Your complaints are disingenuous on many levels. You also say that I’m “trying to convince everybody that it’s an awful film,” that I “hate it with so much passion,” and that it’s “garbage.”

In my review, I gave Avatar a 2.5 star score. 2.5 stars out of 5 equates to “mediocre,” not awful. Nowhere in the review do I say that I hate it or call it garbage. In fact, the second-to-last paragraph explicitly says, “Avatar isn’t a terrible movie. It’s just a terribly disappointing one.”

You’re setting up straw man arguments against a review that you apparently didn’t even read all the way through.

vihdeeohfieuhl

Nobody is yelling at you, and I never said that your comparisons to Dances are inaccurate. Your statement was that the scripts for the two films were identical. I will say it again. That is too outlandish to justify with a response. You are only now softening your stance to “My comparisons.” Without mentioning the scripts because you know I’m right. Don’t try to change course now and act like you were just saying that the films were similar. Your statement was that the scripts were identical to each other. Maybe you took the time to actually look into what a script is and realized just how different the two scripts are.

Nobody is ever going to challenge a comment that there are similarities between Dances and Avatar. Don’t try to act like you just said that there were similarities between the two films.

You are making me say it again, so I will. I never said Box office is a measure of quality. I was saying that you shouldn’t be trying to convince hundreds of millions of people that a filmed they loved was trash. That is the only reason why I ever brought up box office. My argument for quality was the prestigious awards Avatar was nominated for. Furthermore, the films that you bring up all made a third or less than Avatar. You’ve never spent a tenth of the amount of time bashing all of those films combined that you have spent doing so with Avatar. Again, there is success, and then there is Avatar success. Why are you trying to persuade everybody that a film that made as much money as the second and third biggest films of all time made COMBINED that it is so awful? What’s your motive?

You obviously know from the box office figures that millions and millions of people truly, passionately loved this film. Why can’t you just let that be? We get it. You hate it. That’s fine! You don’t need to constantly rip it apart and focus so much negative energy on that. It is this, and this alone that bothers me so much. There is really no point. Films as an artistic medium are subjective. What you might hate, someone else will love. Stop getting in all of your little digs and tired insults. Stop making so much effort at convincing people to feel the same way that you feel about Avatar.

It’s not the terrible film that you make it out to be, and you’re discrediting yourself by not focusing your time, effort, and comments on something worthwhile. If you insist on continuing to focus so much energy on calling it out so often, at least come up with some new insults. Your Dances With Wolves remarks were tired and lame 11 months ago.

Now you’re trying to backpedal by arguing semantics over the word “script.” My point is and always has been that Avatar follows the exact same story as Dances with Wolves point-for-point. All Cameron did was change the setting to outer space.

You say now that, “Nobody is ever going to challenge a comment that there are similarities between Dances and Avatar.” Do you think we’re all incapable of scrolling upward in this thread to see what you wrote earlier? Like this: “It’s actually nothing like Dances with Wolves.”

Do you honestly believe that Avatar’s box office gross means that people LOVED it? I don’t know many people who would actually claim to LOVE it. I know a lot of people who LIKED it, and many of them went to see it several times in theaters to experience the 3-D, which was something they couldn’t get at home. But LOVE? I think you’re reading far too much into box office receipts.

You complain that my Dances with Wolves remarks are “tired and lame.” It’s not my fault that James Cameron copied Dances with Wolves for his movie. But he did, and I have a professional obligation to point it out.

I think that your complaints about my complaints are tired and lame. So where does that leave us?

vihdeeohfieuhl

“In my review, I gave Avatar a 2.5 star score. 2.5 stars out of 5 equates to “mediocre,” not awful. Nowhere in the review do I say that I hate it or call it garbage. In fact, the second-to-last paragraph explicitly says, “Avatar isn’t a terrible movie. It’s just a terribly disappointing one.”

You know very well that I am not referring to your review when I discuss all of the negative energy you direct towards Avatar. I am referring to the incessant insults you throw at it in every post you ever made that pertains to it in any way. Why don’t you re-read your own review and remember the fact that you said, “Avatar isn’t a terrible movie. It’s just a terribly disappointing one.” Perhaps you forgot that that’s the way you feel. Try to keep that in mind going foward will you.

“You complain about the incessant bashing, hate, negativity, and vitriol spewed toward the movie. Yet here you are bashing, hating, and spewing vitriol towards any review that has a different opinion about the movie than you do. Which is the greater waste of time?”

I’m not bashing, hating, or spewing vitriol towards any review that has a different opinion than mine. You know very well that this is not what I’m doing. Nice try though. First of all, I am not spewing any vitriol at all. I am only saying that it bothers me that you do this so much, and that enough is enough. Also, I respect reviews that are of different opinions than my own. My comments have nothing to do with any of your reviews. I am not bothered by your reviews. I am bothered and upset that you put so much time and energy into filling every Avatar related post with so many insults and the same tired comments.

Saying that Inception is, “decent to good” and saying that Scott Pilgrim is better is absolutely fine. I was only pointing out that making such a statement strengthens my points. This is why I said that you make it so easy.

vihdeeohfieuhl

“Now you’re trying to backpedal by arguing semantics over the word “script.” My point is and always has been that Avatar follows the exact same story as Dances with Wolves point-for-point. All Cameron did was change the setting to outer space.”

It is you who started backpedaling and arguing semantics over this word. You started acting like you only ever said that the films were similar, when in fact, you said that their scripts were identical. Don’t try to pretend like you didn’t say this. Shall we enter the exact quote?

“Avatar’s is a point-for-point carbon copy of the Wolves script.”

“You say now that, “Nobody is ever going to challenge a comment that there are similarities between Dances and Avatar.” Do you think we’re all incapable of scrolling upward in this thread to see what you wrote earlier? Like this: “It’s actually nothing like Dances with Wolves.”

You prove my point about your backpedaling here, because my comment was saying that the SCRIPT is actually nothing like the Dances with Wolves SCRIPT.

You feel that my complaints about your incessant Avatar bashing are tired and lame because you don’t like anybody challenging your efforts to make people hate this film. I’m not sure where that leaves us, but hopefully you will start to channel some of that energy in a positive way.

vihdeeohfieuhl

In all seriousness, do you understand what a Script is? Are you familiar with the concept of a Script? Do you understand the differences between a script and a screenplay? Do you understand the differences between a script and a story line?

You said that the script for Avatar was identical to Dances with Wolves, and then tried to backpedal and say that you only ever said that their story’s were similar. I said that their scripts were completely different. If you actually understand what a script is, you would never argue that. Is there one single line of dialogue in Avatar that matches up with one in Dances with Wolves? Nope. This is why I called that statement outlandish and said I wouldn’t justify it with a response.

“Why don’t you re-read your own review and remember the fact that you said, ‘Avatar isn’t a terrible movie. It’s just a terribly disappointing one.’ Perhaps you forgot that that’s the way you feel. Try to keep that in mind going foward will you.”

I don’t need you to tell me what my opinion is, thank you very much.

“I’m not bashing, hating, or spewing vitriol towards any review that has a different opinion than mine. You know very well that this is not what I’m doing.”

No, I don’t know that at all. Based on your posting history in this thread and in our site forums, pretty much all you’ve ever done is rant about how much you hate our reviews.

“I am bothered and upset that you put so much time and energy into filling every Avatar related post with so many insults and the same tired comments.”

I am bothered and upset that you put so much time and energy into filling every movie review related post with so many insults and the same tired comments.

Also, FYI, “script” and “screenplay” are two different words for the same thing. If you’ve created a big distinction between them in your mind, you can take that up with all the Screenwriting and Film Theory professors I studied under in film school.

EM

vihdeeohfieuhl

I shared your comments that script, screenplay, and story line all mean the same thing with my screenwriting professor this morning. They got as big a kick out of it as I did. I plan on sharing the comments with some of my other film school professors later on today, and tomorrow. Thanks for the laughs.

You have a serious reading comprehension problem. I did not say that script, screenplay, AND STORY LINE were all the same thing. That’s a fabrication you’ve invented. I said that script and screenplay are the same thing, which they are. If you’ve concocted a disctinction between these two things in your mind, I’d be fascinated to hear it.

As to your screenwriting professors, I can’t blame them for misconstruing the bad information that you’ve fed to them. As the axiom states: Garbage In = Garbage Out.

What did your professors say when you told them that you think that Avatar’s box office success automatically makes it a great movie? What did they say when you told them that you think Avatar is nothing like Dances with Wolves?

Shayne Blakeley

I’m gonna give this troll a C, it was entertaining enough to read , but it was a tad derivative of a rant I read on a Dances With Wolves forum. 🙂

p.s. Logic apparently dictates that despite the grade I gave, I actually LOVED it because I spent the time to read it. Huh. That makes it kind of hard to have a “most hated movie” doesn’t it?

In all seriousness though, I just want to chime in and add that I, like many, saw Avatar in the theater, it was a big deal and everyone was talking about it (incidentally that’s the same reason I saw The Passion of the Christ, which is my most hated movie as much as I’m allowed to have one) and I was entertained, I never want to see it again, but I didn’t regret the ticket price. That’s about the highest praise I can give it.

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